Laws Related to Medical Negligence

Introduction:

The medical workers are called as representatives of God, that is because what they do on a daily basis is save lives. But, by giving them these high standards, we forget to understand that doctors or the healthcare staff are only humans who possess some special knowledge or skills. And because they are human, they might make mistakes. That’s when the concept of Negligence comes up.

Negligence basically means carelessness while doing an action. Legally, a person is negligent when he doesn’t take required care while doing an act that requires carefulness and then causes injury.

Elements of Negligence are-:

1. The defendant must have the duty to be careful towards the plaintiff
2. There should breach of the duty by the defendant
3. The breach of duty by the defendant should result in some injury to the plaintiff

Medical Negligence

Medical Negligence is when the healthcare workers are negligent/careless while committing their duties towards their patients. While talking about the elements of medical negligence, the defendant would be the healthcare workers, the breach of duty would be the carelessness in the act of the doctor, and injury would be any kind of injury to the patient.

Elements of Medical Negligence:

1. The healthcare workers must have the duty to be careful towards the patient.
2. There should be carelessness by the healthcare workers about that duty.
3. This carelessness by the healthcare workers must cause damage to the patient whether it be mental injury or physical injury.

There are two types of nature of medical negligence in India which are explained below:

Criminal Medical Negligence Laws

Talking about Criminal Medical Negligence, there are many laws regarding it but the most important is Section 304A of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 which states that “whoever causes the death of a person by a rash or negligent act not amounting to culpable homicide shall be punished with imprisonment for a term of two years, or with a fine or with both.” Which means when a person does an act rashly or negligently without the intention of causing the death of a person or knowing that by the act, death might be caused to the person, causes death to a person, will be liable for the offence. Other sections like section 337 and 338 also talk about criminal negligence resulting in hurting people.

According to a landmark judgement by the Supreme Court, mere negligence does not cause offence in cases of medical negligence under Criminal Law. Healthcare professionals have to take risks and make the best decisions in every case, if they are sometimes negligent, they cannot always be criminally negligent. Professionals may not be guilty of criminal negligence; they may be liable to pay monetary damages. Only if the negligence is of a high order by the medical professional, then only criminal negligence would be applied.

A professional would be liable under criminal law if it was negligent in doing his duty which is in disregard of the patient’s right to life and safety of the patient so that it amounts to a crime. (R v Adomako, 1994)

Civil Medical Negligence Laws

Services provided by medical professionals are also covered under the Consumer Protection, Act. If the service of a medical professional is in deficiency, the consumer can take compensation from the defendant. Deficiency of service under CPA means any fault, imperfection or inadequacy in the quality, nature or manner of performance that is required to be maintained by or under any law for the time being in force or has been undertaken or be performed by a person in pursuance of a contract or otherwise about any service. (Section 2(1)(g) The Consumer Protection Act, 1986)

Indian Medical Association v. VP Shantha, Supreme court gave authority to patients to sue doctors under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, there being a contractual relationship between them so the injured can get compensation from the defendants.

Cases Related to Medical Negligence

Pravat Mukherjee vs Ruby General Hospital and Others, 2005

Facts

A college student was hit by a truck and was taken to the hospital, where the father who was the complainant showed an insurance card to the hospital but still the hospital asked the father to pay the hospital before operating on the boy, which the father did not do and the hospital stopped operating and rejected to treat the patient. While the boy was being transported to a different hospital, he passed away.

Result

Father filed a complaint to the National Commission, which decided that the hospital was liable to pay the parents compensation for the loss of life of their son. The unethical doing of the hospital was the reason why the hospital became liable

Kunal Saha vs. Dr. Sukumar Mukherjee, 2011

Facts

Kunal Saha, a US-based-Indian Origin AIDS researcher with his Child Psychologist wife were visiting India, his wife got a drug allergy and she went to the hospital where the doctors gave some wrong medicines to the woman, which worsened her health and resulted in her death.

Result

The husband of the woman filed a case against the doctors for negligence. At first, the lower courts rejected the plea though Supreme court directed the hospital to pay compensation of 6 crores for the death of his wife on 24^th October 2013. It took him 15 years to get this judgement done and 4 years for getting the awarded compensation from the Supreme Court. This was a historic judgement as this was the highest amount of compensation given for any medical negligence case.

V. Kishan Rao vs. Nikhil Super Specialty Hospital, 2010

Facts

In this case, Mr Kishan Rao, an officer in the malaria department filed a case against the hospital for treating his wife for typhoid instead of malaria which led to her death. He filed a case against the hospital for medical negligence. The district consumer forum, in their judgement, asked the hospital to pay compensation of Rs. 2 lakhs for the negligence done by the hospital, which was overruled later by the other higher forums, because of the fact that there wasn’t any independent expert opinion which agreed with Mr Kishan Rao, which led him to appeal to the supreme court regarding this.

Result

The Supreme court stated that there wasn’t need for an independent expert opinion in this case on the basis of the principle of “res ipsa loquitor” which means that things speak for itself, and in this case, it is clear that the hospital was negligent towards the patient. The Supreme Court upheld and agreed with the judgement given by the District consumer forum.

Medical Negligence During COVID-19

Currently, a terrifying pandemic virus namely COVID 19 has arisen, and with the daily increase of the spread of the virus, and with that the number of patients under the care of medical professionals has also increased.  The so-called deities who are battling this disease, because of the vast increase of patients are more prone to making mistakes. There have also been reports of patients being denied medical assistance because there being a lack of servicing professionals or medical equipments, etc. This has resulted in an increase in medical negligence cases, and no strict laws concerning it is making this situation worse.

Conclusion

While there are many provisions for medical negligence, a specific committee is necessary for the resolution of all the various types of medical negligence cases. Because of the increasing population, natural calamities, diseases and Current scenario of COVID-19, etc. there has been an increase of patients in hospitals and because of the increase, a higher number of mistakes and negligence is predicted to happen which because the increasing amount of people who are aware of their rights will file complaints regarding the negligence done towards them. The committee should make tighter laws and make the medical system more transparent and open. This committee should be given authority to decide on all the cases related to medical negligence.

References:

R v Adomako (1994).

Section 2(1)(g) The Consumer Protection Act, 1986. (n.d.).